The legend of Havelok the Dane and the historiography of East Anglia

Abstract:

My purpose here is to examine the nature of such fabrication by suggesting
that many of the names associated with the Havelok legend in
its various forms do in fact suggest if not a historical origin, then a historiographical
one. I will trace the names of some of the characters in
historiographical traditions about East Anglia and examine the context
in which they appeared in Gaimar’s version of the Havelok tale. Next, I
will examine the historiographical roots for the name changes that are
found in Havelok the Dane and suggest that they imply a literary context
for the transformation of the tale over time. I will argue that the names
of the characters in the various versions of the tale, both early and late,
are the result neither of a corrupted popular version of forgotten history
nor of a crafted illusion of history by later poets. Rather, they grew out
of the chronicle tradition of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries
in which writers were engaged in a process of East Anglian historybuilding,
a learned and literate enterprise that attempted to establish
an identity for the region. In short, at least certain aspects of the legend
that has come down to us have as much to do with historiography as
with popular romance.

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